Death Row Inmate Hurt

Second Prison Attack Raises Safety Issues

A stabbing on death row Wednesday drew state police to a Connecticut prison for the second time in two days, prompting one legislator to express concerns about safety in the system.

Though state police and prison officials would provide few details, sources said Daniel Webb stabbed fellow death row inmate Russell Peeler Jr. in the head with a pen around 1:30 p.m. at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers.

FOR THE RECORD - Correction published may 24, 2008.*Waldemar Rivera, a prison inmate suspected in the May 13 killing of fellow inmate Kevin Cales, is 28. Page 1 stories on May 14 and May 15 said Rivera was 18.

Peeler, who was said to have developed a friendship with Webb by talking through their cells, was transported to a hospital from the prison, but was expected to recover.

The stabbing occurred a little more than a day after inmate Kevin Cales was stomped to death by another inmate at McDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield.

"I think those two incidents on the heels of each other definitely raise concerns," said state Sen. John A. Kissel, R-Enfield, a member of the judiciary committee. "We need to make sure that our correctional facilities are secure and safe, and that means giving our prison officials the necessary tools and manpower to do their jobs."

In Wednesday's attack, it was not clear how Webb and Peeler were able to interact; normally, death row inmates are not allowed contact with one another, or with any other inmates.

Webb, 45, has been on death row since 1991, when he was sentenced in the 1989 Hartford slaying of Diane Gellenbeck, a 37-year-old bank executive. Peeler, 36, was sentenced to death last year for ordering the 1999 killing of an 8-year-old Bridgeport boy, Leroy "B.J." Brown Jr., who was to testify against him in a murder trial.

He also ordered the killing of the boy's mother, Karen Clarke.

In Tuesday's incident, Cales was attacked while he was eating lunch in a common area of the high-security unit at McDougall-Walker. Correction and police sources identified Cales' attacker as Waldemar Rivera, who, they say, was meting out "prison justice" for one of the five deaths Cales caused in a 2006 crash that followed a car chase.

Rivera, 18, has not been charged in the incident.

Correction sources have said Rivera was somehow related to Cales' ex-girlfriend, Maryneliz Jimenez, or one of her four friends who were killed in the crash on May 27, 2006.

On that day, Cales had been stalking Jimenez, with whom he had a son, and chased her car at speeds up to 120 mph on the Chamberlain Highway in Berlin. Jimenez's car went off the road in a crash so horrific emergency crews had to retrieve a body from a tree.

Cales was eventually convicted of five counts of manslaughter, and on Tuesday, when he was attacked, he was less than two months into a 79-year prison sentence.

He died Tuesday at about 10:30 p.m.

"Things work in strange ways," said Juanita Jimenez, Maryneliz's mother, who was surprised and saddened by Cales' death. "My condolences do go out to the family."

As for a possible connection between her daughter and Rivera, Jimenez said her ex-husband has a nephew named Waldemar Rivera, but he is in his 30s, and he never knew her daughter. It is not clear if the Waldemar Rivera that Jimenez knows is related to the Waldemar Rivera allegedly involved in the incident.

Meanwhile, Juanita Jimenez and her husband are raising the son Cales fathered with Maryneliz.

The last time the boy, Sinciere Jimenez, saw his father was about six months before the 2006 crash, when he was about 3 months old. He is now 2.

Cales' death, Jimenez said, compounds her sense of loss.

"I hate to say it, but it is another tragedy," she said. "I really wanted him to pay for what he did, but in the way that is supposed to be paid."